I’m thrilled to say Frank Scully has graced us with his cyber presence. This is one fine writer. And he’s also a cat lover! Frank has had a very interesting life, and I hope all of you will enjoy his interview as much as I did. Welcome, Frank!

Heather, it is a pleasure to stop by and guest on your blog. Always nice to visit a fellow Muser, and I have enjoyed your Alvarez Murder Mystery series. We are also apparently both cat lovers as well as mystery writers. Cats are a mystery in themselves that no one will ever solve.

Anyway, thanks for letting me stop by to mention my latest book, EMPTY TIME. I had fun writing this one. In most of my books the hero is, well, a hero type. A soldier or a cop, even if a part time deputy, or something similar. In EMPTY TIME, my protagonist, Jim Lang, starts out as a fat-bottomed corporate bureaucrat who is set up to be the patsy for international stock fraud, murder and other crimes. Now, although I have a day job as a corporate bureaucrat, it shouldn’t be assumed that I have a generous backside or am anything like the hero. However, I do know the inner workings of the corporate world and business negotiations all too well. Fortunately, I haven’t been set up to take the blame for murder and had to run from cops on several continents or been the target for killers. But who knows what might happen after my bosses read this book.

Today’s corporate titans are much like the feudal lords and barons of medieval times. They claw and scheme their way up a ladder of prestige, privilege, wealth and power. However, unlike feudal times there is no code of conduct or moral precepts. Chivalry is dead. Working on a global scale beyond governments and borders, these new aristocrats are almost untouchable.

Jim Lang sold his soul to the company for a salary and the promise of promotion. His life sputtered into a workaholic rut on a middle rung of the corporate ladder while his colleagues, using his business plan, became the international business barons he once aspired to be. Bad memories of busted marriages and broken promises are all that keep him company in his personal hours so he is more than willing to sacrifice that empty time to his job to make the corporation grow. His bosses have one more sacrifice in mind for him. To die for them. Deceived, betrayed and framed for murder and massive stock fraud, his bosses plan for him to die and disappear. Disappear, he does; die, he doesn’t.

Lang must face and conquer his old fears and guilt, and live up to the potential within. To save the people he loves he must put his life on the line to turn the tables on his former colleagues in an inter-continental, multi-billion dollar, fast paced and lethal game of corporate intrigue and treachery with bloody traps and deadly counter traps.

It is also different from my other novels so far in that much of the action takes place in Europe. I have done a lot of traveling and enjoyed working some of what I know into the book.

EMPTY TIME is my third book out from MuseItUp. RESURRECTION GARDEN and DEAD MAN’S GAMBIT came out earlier. I have three more under contract. Next up will be BLOOD SINS early next year followed by GRAVEDIGGER’S OPEN HOUSE and VACATION MAN.
All are part of my Decade Mystery Series. I am writing at least one novel set in each decade from the beginning of the 20th century to the current time set in different locales with both continuing and new characters in each one. There is something unique in each decade that marks it as separate from what went before or what follows. I explore aspects of what is unique as it is expressed in the locale chosen and how it affects the culture, characters and the tenor of the times and yet also see the common humanity that never changes.

I am hard at work on my seventh novel and a short story but never seem to have near enough time to work on them.

Thanks again for having me as a quest and thanks to all your readers. All of my books are available at the MuseItUp bookstore: https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/
They are also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other online eBook retailers.

I also welcome all to visit my website: www.frankjscully.com

And blog: http://frankjscully.com/blog/

EMPTY TIME
Synopsis

Jim Lang’s life sputtered into a workaholic rut on a middle rung of the corporate ladder while his colleagues, using his business plan, became the international business titans he once aspired to be.

Bad memories of busted marriages and broken promises are all that keep him company in his personal hours so he is more than willing to sacrifice that empty time to his job to make the corporation grow. His bosses have one more sacrifice in mind for him. To die for them.

Deceived, betrayed and framed for murder and massive stock fraud, his bosses plan for him to die and disappear. Disappear, he does; die, he doesn’t.

Lang must face and conquer his old fears and guilt, and live up to the potential within. To save the people he loves he must put his life on the line to turn the tables on his former colleagues in an inter-continental, multi-billion dollar, fast paced and lethal game of corporate intrigue and treachery with bloody traps and deadly counter traps.